


Far From A Man

by dreamonlosers



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ed Is A Little Shit, Gender Issues, Light Angst, Trans Male Character, Transgender, in which vomiting and flirty-ness save the day, sorry im a tag slut lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamonlosers/pseuds/dreamonlosers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward has to confess to being biologically female, Roy has to deal with the law and an ex-lover, and Riza doesn't want to clean up after Roy's shit anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far From A Man

**Author's Note:**

> There is so little fanfiction about a character from Fullmetal Alchemist being transgender. It's important to me, so I wrote one myself after finding the first few paragraphs on my computer where it had sat there for maybe six months. I know Roy's response is a little dismissive but we're talking about Roy Mustang, y'all. He isn't good with this shit.

Ed didn’t look up.

He didn’t plan to get into this situation, but then again, he hadn’t planned a lot of things that ended up happening. All he wanted right now was to be with his brother and continue their search for a philosopher’s stone, but he had hit a roadblock yet again. Another goddamn roadblock.

A doctor was sitting across from him—or at least he thought she was a doctor. She cleared her throat to begin the session. “Is your name Edward Elric?”

He nodded his head, but she shuffled through her file of papers and pushed a document across the table. “Shall I repeat the question?”

There was a long pause in the room, and Ed felt like he was suffocating in the silence. 

“No. No, Edward is not my birth name.”

Fucking shithead, he thought. These issues weren’t common and Edward damned himself for instigating it, accident or not. It was obvious from this point on that he would never be viewed the same; he wanted to peel his skin off.

The doctor asked, “Can you inform me of your real name?”

His head shot up and he met the gaze of the woman. “My real name is Edward.”

She was irritated at his resistance, but sighed and knew not to expect more from the young alchemist. “Fine, can you say your birth given name?”

There was no response.

“Resistance only makes it harder for us to help you.”

Ed had to hold back a laugh. "What does it matter now, if you know that Edward isn't my 'real name'?”

The name he was withholding was like a fucking knife to the throat, he wanted to vomit; specifically on the doctor’s face. He wanted to peel the smug expression right off her nasty face as she looked through her papers again, this time pulling out an application he had filled out two years ago.

“So, it seems that you lied on your application to be a state alchemist, stating that you are a male and that your name is Edward Elric.” God, what he wouldn’t give to get away from punching her in the face. “By law, that’s a pretty heavy crime.”

“As heavy as you?” Ed shot back, drawing attention to her figure. She scowled, her pale face turning as pink as her blouse which she self-consciously tugged over her belly. She didn’t meet his eyes but continued to scan over his documents, squinting at his chicken-scratch handwriting.

Edward had ignored Colonel Mustang’s presence during the past half hour, but his gaze gravitated to the bastard during the silence. He was glaring at the alchemist. His expression read: _Stop making matters worse you fucking idiot._

The clipboard made an impatient _thunk_ on the mahogany desk and was followed by a heavy sigh illuminated by the cold air seeping through the cracked window. Colonel Bastard never fully closed it.

“I need to do a physical exam,” she announced. “The court would want a health check.”

Ed eyed her suspiciously. “Why would the law give a shit?

“Because it’ll help them determine whether or not to send you to prison or the loony bin. Take off your shirt.”

He wanted to hurl all over the documents, but instead, he ducked over to the waste bin and emptied what little was in his belly, maybe some stomach acid as well. Ed hoped that if he just kept his head in there, they would all just leave him alone. 

“Ms. Elric!”

“Fuck off!” Ed spat into the bucket. “Just shove the clipboard up your fat ass, alright?”

Then he felt someone rub his back, a bit too forcefully to be comforting. “That’s enough, Fullmetal.”

“Andrea,” Mustang’s voice cut right through the tension. He didn’t use her professional name, so Ed concluded that they had a relationship which was anything but professional and he almost hurled again. “I am sure you’re aware of Fullmetal’s, uh, circumstances…”

Their voices grew further away until the door slammed shut. Edward raised his head, wiping the corners of his mouth with his jacket sleeve before realizing Lieutenant Hawkeye’s company. A soft blush was the only color on his pale, sickly-looking face but the sniper wasn’t fazed. Instead, her glare was focused on the wooden flap separating the office from the hallway as if she was trying to burn it with enough concentration. Edward couldn’t help but suspect a hint of jealousy.

Riza relieved herself of her upright stance and lifted the plastic bag out of the trashcan, tying the handles together. It was obvious that it had been weeks since the colonel had properly maintained his shit and the vomit was the final straw. 

She huffed tossed the bag down a chute that Edward had never noticed before, muttering, “Taking out your trash is not my goddamned job, Colonel.”

The doctor - Andrea - returned with Mustang closely behind her. Both Ed and Riza noticed her flushed face and her ponytail riddled with fly-aways as she rummaged through her bag for basic medical tools and informed Edward that, while the checkup was mandatory, she agreed to say little about the situation under the conditions that he was physically well. 

Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice his heart skipping some beats because he was so goddamned relieved. He almost didn’t hear Andrea instruct him to remove his shirt. 

“W-wait, do they have to be here?” He asked, gesturing to his superiors. 

Andrea nodded. “Witnesses are needed for this, sorry. Can you take off your shirt, now?”

The state alchemist turned away from Mustang and Hawkeye, both of them standing as still as a statue, expressions blank. His coat was discarded onto the floor, followed by his last line of defense, a mere tank top. Cold steel was quickly placed on his chest, too goddamn close to his breasts in his opinion. It didn’t matter how small they were, he wanted to snap at her to back the fuck off.

But this was the best case scenario. While Edward was notorious for his illogical temper, he knew better than to compromise the deal with his fiery behavior. He allowed Andrea to poke and prod at his body as if he was a corpse in a morgue.

He thought that they were finally finished when Andrea shoved an otoscope up his nose and ears. She chastised him for his lack of ear hygiene among other things (Edward didn’t usually have a chance or a shit to give to keep up with it) and told him he could put his shirt back on. He did it with haste, pulling his coat around him as if it would make them forget that it had ever been off. 

“Not yet,” Andrea interrupted, trying to push the left sleeve off his shoulder. “I need to update your shots, you’re due for one.”

***

Everyone in vicinity must have thought that Roy was fucking murdering someone. Somehow, the struggle made its way to the hallway where Ed was pinned to the ground with his flesh arm extended and Riza’s foot was planted on his wrist as Andrea - poor Andrea - impaled him with the syringe. She didn’t even stay to stop the bleeding, she just tossed her bag over her shoulder and stormed off without so much as a goodbye to Mustang.

“Colonel Bastard!” Fullmetal shouted. Roy had a hold on his hair, like a mother cat holding a kitten by the scruff. Except, Mustang was angrier and threw the state alchemist into the study, kicking the door shut and barking at Edward to get off the floor.

Shards of glass splattered across the carpet when Roy knocked off the vase on his desk. The roses were dead, anyways (Madame Christmas would send him new ones in a week or so, just to remind him of home). He wanted Edward to look like the broken glass when he was finished, but he stayed behind his desk and pretended it was was a force field separating the two.

Fullmetal shifted his weight to one foot and hunched over, arms crossed over his chest. Edward displayed his outright rebellion to proper behavior towards his superiors with just his goddamned stance.

Roy rubbed his temples. “Fullmetal! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Do you want, like, a list, or…?” Ed retorted.

“Okay,” Roy sighed. “This is going to be dealt with at some point or another, let’s just get it over with.”

Reasoning with a child was not in his job description. Neither was being involved in complex shenanigans involving such as what he was being affronted with, but everything found Mustang somehow.

“I want to see Al,” Edward replied, ignoring the Colonel’s question.

“And, as your superior, I want to know what’s going on.” Roy told him.

In the reflection of his coffee mug, he saw Hawkeye nod at Edward. A silent urge to confess, which probably held more encouragement than Roy could provide in a lifetime. If she wasn’t there, the alchemists would be stuck in an unemotional, withholding limbo forever.

Brevity truly was the soul of the wit. Especially in regards to Ed’s soul, but he said more than Roy had expected. Fullmetal told of his situation, how he didn’t identify as his birth given gender and expectations. He started passing as a boy when he was ten and he felt better when people addressed him as such.

“I like it. I like being called a man,” Ed finished, his eyes downcast towards one side.

And Roy laughed, maybe as a way to de-escalate the tension because it was clear that he was still angry. Both Edward and Riza looked at him. “You may be boy, Fullmetal, but you’re far from being a man.”

“I’ve known you as a boy for the past few years and I don’t need to change how I regard you. You’re dismissed.”

Edward huffed and adjusted his collar. “That’s it?”

Mustang knew that the alchemist was uncertain of how to handle his gratitude, but he wanted to tease him anyway. He could easily mend his relationship with Andrea and, as far as he was concerned, he wasn’t stepping into any hot water.

“Do you want me to say anything more? I can talk about how I once slept with - “

“Nope. Thanks, Colonel.”

Fullmetal must have thought that the room was on fire because he ran out of the study without bothering to shut the door. Roy smiled and reclined in his chair, scanning over some document that he was supposed to return to Breda in the morning.

He didn’t notice Hawkeye’s absence until she thrust a broom into his hand and announced that her shift was over. She always got off an hour before him.

She gestured to the glass on the floor. “You should clean that up. It is not my job.”

If they didn’t have an intimate relationship, Roy would’ve chastised her for disrespect in the workplace. But, of course, Roy had a soft spot for Riza. 

“I’ll get right to it, Lieutenant.”

**Author's Note:**

> It has to end with Royai schmoop. I'd never forgive myself if otherwise. Please leave a comment with criticism/praise or kudos!


End file.
